


Demon Prince

by ScissorsParchment



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 23:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15851418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScissorsParchment/pseuds/ScissorsParchment
Summary: After the war was over, the Decepticon Air Commander approached to an unimaginable collaborator for an incredible reason.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Translation from [Chinese original](http://aprilapplez.lofter.com/post/1d292132_ef2fc952) of my own work (completed)
> 
> Units of time:  
> Nanoklik = Cybertronian second  
> Klik = Cybertronian minute  
> Joor = Cybertronian hour  
> Solar cycle = Cybertronian day  
> Stellar cycle = Cybertronian year
> 
> BGM: ["Grudge" by Flaming Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMzUKB8khxo)

The Iacon Central Jail towered over the city and also had several stories of cells underground. Twenty stories below the surface, the bottom structure of the jail was called the Burial Ground.

The Burial Ground was nowhere for burying prisoners, and those who died in the Central Jail were more likely to be straightly recycled into the Smelting Pool. Instead, the Burial Ground got its name because almost no one getting into it could ever leave: it was the most heavily defensed part in the jail and kept the prisoners that were least likely to be abated.  

Each time the guards marched a prisoner into the Burial Ground, they both saw the mech on the wall at the end of its central hall as they passed by it.

Behind a transparent baffle board, the big mech was fastened onto the wall high above the ground by stasis restraining bands on his limbs and waist, supported by wall shelves beneath his pedes. His red and blue armor covered by breakages and his optics dark, he looked lifeless except that he did yet turn grey.

The view was deterring for the guards and anyone coming for their duties. For the prisoners it was rather the visualized despair.

There was no one but knew this prisoner, once the hope of Cybertron and the Prime leading the Autobots to fight against the Warlord. Now he had reduced to this, who else going against the Decepticons could expect a salvation, and who that had submitted dared be disloyal?      

Optimus had been in the Burial Ground since the Decepticons had won the war and ruled the entire Cybertron. Actually, he could see his surroundings, but for saving energy in his weakness, his optics only gave dimmest light even when they were online.

The enemies had given him some repairs to prevent his further bleeding or infection, but also kept his energy level lower than adequate to perform self-healing. Restrained by the stasis bands and unable to move a finger, he could only live on the energon transfusion into his flank through a tube connecting to the energon bottle hung on the wall. The amount of the supply was only as much as to keep him online.

Day after day, he watched prisoners taken into the Burial Ground: some were his acquaintances, some unknown to him but carrying Autobot insignias, and some badgeless. There were also prisoners taken out, and most of them were back with all kinds of wounds from tortures, leaving energon traces by tripping and dragging on the floor or trailers carrying them. Those who never returned ended up in the Smelting Pool: by the time they were dragged out, some of them were still online, some had turned grey, and some were not even in one piece.

Every time he saw this, Optimus was almost thankful to the stasis restraining bands for making him unable to struggle or shiver. Whatever other Cybetronians might think, he always regarded the miserable scene before him as his fault.

He could always kill himself to end such torture, but if he did, the elite soldiers captured together with him at their last battle would also be deactivated. Megatron has threatened him that. Only for the chance of his soldiers to live did Optimus surrender and let the Warlord put him here for exhibition; now those soldiers were kept on Luna 2, working as slave miners.

Optimus knew that the Warlord wanted the elite soldiers live all along. After all, Megatron would not eliminate all the Autobot soldiers and civilians that almost took up half of the population on the planet. The elite soldiers being killed would make them martyrs and could cause previous Autobot-aligned civilians to revolt in desperate, thinking that they would otherwise have the same fate. Letting the elite soldiers alive and turn into scraps enslaved could pacify the civilians and was more deterring to Autobot sympathizers. But the Prime was also clear that if he refused to submit to Megatron, his soldiers, at least part of them, would still be deactivated.

He had been locked up here for over one thousand and a hundred solar cycles. But his worst days actually had ended over one hundred solar cycles ago, when an uninvited guest came to him for the first time -

The side door of the hall opened. There entered an insentient drone for energy supply. The buzz of the drone, not really loud, echoed in the empty hall.  

The supply drone went through the baffle board and onto the lifting table against the wall. The lifting table rose to Optimus’ side. The drone reached out its mechanical arm, detached his transfusion tube from the energon bottle, and sterilized the end of the tube by medicinal liquid. It would change a new bottle of energon for him, and then get back to the floor and leave to send energon cubes to the cells.

Does this one come for ordinary supply only, or…? Optimus could not judge, but he was almost expecting the uninvited guest. During the countless staller cycles of wars, he had never hoped to meet that Cybertronian.

A hologram emerged before his optics as he was wondering.

The hologram was sent via a special private short-range communication signal directly into his processor, making him the only one seeing it. Under the surveillance videos and in the eyes of anyone possibly passing by, in front of him there was only air. The signal came from the supply drone. He had met that guest for several times like this.

The guest - the flier in red, white and blue, was slender and glamorous even among the Seekers. This, though, had not impeded his becoming their Winglord and the Air Commander of the Decepticons.

Starscream was not putting on his trademark smirk. Moreover, Optimus notices at the first sight the new paints on his snow-white wings besides the purple Decepticon insignias. The new paints seemed to be made of temporal decorating sprays and composed an abstract silver-grey pattern in frosted texture.

It was a ribbon pattern formed by alternant insignias of two city-states, Vos and Tarn, each slightly overlapping its adjacent ones on the left and right.  

This classic design was undeniably beautiful on the Seeker, but Optimus was almost shocked at seeing it on him.

Before Optimus could ask anything, Starscream transferred him a data file and said in the communication channel:  

“Tonight, Rodimus will lead his entire troop to come for your rescue. On Luna 2, Jazz will lead the break out of the mine at the same time. You cannot get a faster energon transfuse under the surveillance, but I have replaced your new bottle of energon into one with highly concentrated formula. By the time your mechs break the restraining bands on you, your energy level should enable you to move normally.”

The data file was the detailed action plan of the Autobots tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sketch of the Vos and Tarn insignias:


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comm. messages are quoted by :: ::. The communication between Starscream and Optimus in the Burial Ground is closer to a direct conversation in Optimus’s processor, so regular quotation marks are used.

Over two hundred solar cycles ago, under the ground of a desolate moon in a solar system near Cybertron. The Ark put on red alert immediately after it spotted an unidentified spacecraft approaching.

Iacon was the last city captured by the Decepticons. In the last battle guarding Iacon, Optimus took command on the ground, and the high-altitude battlefield was charged by their young-generation leading figure Rodimus. The Autobots were outnumbered, and when there was not hope but be defeated, Optimus decided to preserve their high-altitude troop for the future. He overrode Rodimus’s control of the Ark with the commander’s authority, and directed the Autobot lead warship to retreat out of the Cybertron orbit, regardless of the strong opposition of Rodimus. Shortly afterwards, the Decepticons conquered the entire Cybertron. Rodimus integrated the remaining small amount of Autobot military force across the galaxy and led them to go underground. Secretly lying below the surface of this moon was the current Autobot headquarter, as well as the Ark, their only remaining mothership spacecraft. They could afford the damage of neither the headquarter nor the Ark.

For saving resources, the Autobots took the Ark as the base’s control center, concentrating their best surveillance and communication facilities on it. Then, as the tension hiked up in the commander compartment of the Ark, the big red and white flier at the operation console received an unexpected comm. message on a private frequency that had been silent for many years.

:: Skyfire. ::

The Shuttle felt his spark spinning a thousand times a klik.

:: Glad to know that you still retain our frequency. I know you’re here. :: The other continued.

The comm. link reported that the receiving time of the message was within one nanokilk after the sending time. Within a light-nanokilk around the Ark, the only possible source of the message was the approaching unidentified spacecraft. The other must had judged by the same fact that he was in the Ark.

Don’t you as well retain our frequency, Star, Skyfire answered silently. But it was not the time to think about this. By no means the other was pinging him for a personal affair.

:: Let me get close and come to my ship with Rodimus, only two of you. Tell the others I am your secret contact on Cybertron. If Rodimus refuses to come, I’ll send your coordinates to Soundwave. ::

Sure enough. If the Decepticon lead communication officer gets to know their location, Skyfire thought, then within tens of kliks, the Autobots will face the Decepticon main force jumping out of the Space Bridge. And the communication officer will block all their routes of retreat using his omni-surveillance. Skyfire glanced at their young flame-colored commander in front of the monitoring screens, and sent him a private comm. message.

Twenty kliks later, Rodimus and Skyfire stepped into the control compartment of Starscream’s spacecraft.

“Starscream, I am not particularly surprised that you, as one always with ulterior motives, got us here instead of reporting to Megatron after you spotted us.” The acting Autobot Leader looked at the spacecraft’s owner warily. The Decepticons had been notorious for their internal strife, and the one trying to usurp the Decepticon leadership and almost succeeded for the most times was no one else but their second-in-command in front of the two Autobots. It was almost legendary that the Warlord had not eliminated him because of that. “But you may not realize your aim whatever it is.”

“What if,” Starscream smirked, “my aim is to rescue your Prime out of the Burial Ground?”

 

Starscream required Skyfire and his fellow Autobot scientists to improve two technologies for him: a small invisibility cover that could fake being totally penetrated by visible light, and a short-range private communication that was superb at anti-surveillance. The CCTV in the Iacon Central Jail was seamless, but there were tiny pieces - smaller than regular bots - of dead spaces that were missed by more powerful surveillance devices. Thus, after transforming into a miniature jet of video camera size using mass displacement, Starscream could shelter himself inside the invisibility cover, wait in a dead space, slip into the storage chamber of a supplying drone as it passed by, and finally reach Optimus and contact him through the short-range private communication.

With the same technologies, the Autobots could also contact their comrades imprisoned on Luna 2 and plot the jailbreak with them. The surveillance in Luna 2’s mine was not so watertight as in the Central Jail, so Starscream only needed to help them sneak into a cargo craft towards the mine. As for the Burial Ground, it was too difficult to hide oneself there and the place held far too many other secrets, so Starscream only agreed to contact Optimus by himself.

With the initial techs provided by Starscream and the surveillance details in their target places, Skyfire and his comrades worked around the clock and accomplished the two techs in just over one hundred solar cycles.

Then Starscream flew near to the Autobot base again, got Rodimus and Skyfire onboard and received the techs. By then, Rodimus asked him another question:

“Skyfire and I have kept our promise to conceal your identity from others. But Megatron can rip you to shreds if he ever knows what you are doing. It seems that we can threaten you with that and get you help the Autobots more than you planned to. But surely you have precaution against that. What have you done?”

Starscream curled his lip with a sneer.

“You know Decepticons have mines and factories on many planets we conquered.” He answered, “In the sites for the most dangerous jobs, the workers are all enslaved Autobots and aboriginals. We monitor those sites by airforce and drones and put a lot of explosives there. In case the workers rebel or other forces try to take control of the sites, and the condition is beyond our control – our airforce can retreat in kliks, then the explosives will detonate and destroy the sites. Airforce means that the highest control and detonation commands of all these sites are at my hand. I’ll not tell you how many such sites there are, but there are six thousand workers in the largest site alone.”

He tapped on his helm twice. “The detonation commands are in my processor. If you expose my identity, even Megatron blows up my head at once with his fusion cannon, there’s still time for me to send out the commands and bury all those slave workers will me.”

After Rodimus and Skyfire boarded their tender and left Starscream’s spacecraft, Skyfire received another comm. message from Starscream:

:: Don’t you wonder if I really have the heart to do that? ::

He refers to detonating the factories and mines to kill all the slaves. Skyfires silenced for a dozen nanokliks before he replied:  

:: I’m not sure if you’ll really do that. Burying them with you will not save you, and you are not into meaningless killing without benefiting yourself. But you must have the heart to kill them. I’ve been disillusioned for long by what you have done in the war. In one of the few conversations we have had since the war broke out, you said that you had forgot how many cities you had razed to the ground, even if you had not been apathetic about that at the beginning.”

Starscream, known for his sarcasms, did not ridicule or even disapprove Skyfire’s comment this time.

:: Surely I remember what I have said to you. :: He simply answered.

:: I, too, am no longer the jocular scientist who even teased you now and then. How many times have I fired my aerial cannons at the Decepticons, who are also fellow Cybertronians? And until now… :: Skyfire said again in the comm., but then he hesitated and paused. He continued after several nanokliks:

:: Till now, Star, my affection to you has never changed. It is also on the condition that I know what kind of mech you are now, and what kind of mech I have turned to. ::

Starscream sat in the control compartment alone, watching the tender disappearing into a point on the main screen. Skyfire in the ranks of the Autobots, his sworn enemies, was also his first love and the only mech he was once dating. After the war began, he and another mech established a relationship without a single date. Or perhaps he and that mech had never been in a real relationship.

:: I see. :: Finally he could only answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An illustration of Star in Chapter 1, with ribbon pattern on his wings formed by Vos and Tarn insignias.


	3. Chapter 3

"Why are you helping us?"

Rodimus asked in the first conversation with Starscream on the latter's ship. "It is not surprising that you always try to overturn Megatron and take the Decepticon leadership. But why coming to cooperate with us at our weakest time?"

"Must I explain?" Starscream casted a sidelong glance, "I don't think you have other choices than cooperating with me."

“Perhaps you are trapping us by inducing our rescue and jailbreak, so that Megatron ‘has to’ eradicate us in order to quell the riot without breaking his promise to spare the Autobots’ lives or leading the surrendered Autobots into desperate rebel. If so, we shall refuse to cooperate. Anyway, we are ready at any time to evacuate our base once spotted by the Decepticons and bear the consequential loss.” Rodimus stared at him, “In this case, you are in much larger danger than us before the Decepticon reinforcements arrive, considering the firepower of our base and your ship.”

The provocation and threatening ignited a string of sparks through the Air Commander’s crimson optics. Then his optics dimmed rapidly.

“If I am helping you end this war – to end it thoroughly – will you believe?”

 

The war seemed to have concluded after the Decepticons controlled the entire Cybertron. The Rodimus team knew, however, that the reality was just the opposite. Imprisoned in the Burial Ground, Optimus nonetheless had no access to what was going on outside, even he could well anticipate it. Thus, after Starscream for the first time hid in a supplying drone and approached Optimus, and Optimus asked as well why he would help the Autobots, Starscream had to catch him up on the situations outside.

“Now the Decepticons continue their space invasion. They keep enslaving and slaughtering intelligent lives. The Depeticons arose from the persecution by the pre-war corrupt Autobot government, and now the Autobots and aboriginals of the conquered planets are even more persecuted and worse off than the pre-war underclasses. Can the rebellions of those in desperation be far off? The warfare originated from the Decepticon rebellion swept across the planet Cybertron; the warfare following the coming rebellions can devastate every planet in the galaxy the Decepticons expand to.”

“‘You Autobots make it your mission to safeguard peace and stop the Decepticons from invading other civilizations, don’t you?’ I said to Rodimus, ‘then you have every incentive to accelerate action on stopping all these and saving the day. You shall unite with all the forces that can be united, including me. Even you do not believe me, at the moment you only need to work out and provide me the two technologies I said. Can you see any risk in doing so? Out of the two technologies, the ultra-short-range private comm. is of merit only under heavy surveillance, and the invisibility cover can conceal only those transforming into pistol-size and not activating their battling protocols. What else can I do with such technologies apart from approaching Optimus Prime? So, why not do as I’ve proposed and let me see Optimus first? Your leader will decide whether I am trustable.’”

“A persuasive speech.” Answered Optimus through the short-range comm., “so, you want to use the Autobot force to impede Megatron’s continuing invasion and massacre? Noble effort. But I never know that you are a pacifist. Even you have become one, haven’t you ever tried to remonstrate Megatron directly? Or maybe you have tried but failed to bring out a bit tenderness from him, even with the relationship between you two.”

“You already know it, Prime.” Starscream chuckled raucously, “My relationship with Megatron? Certainly you’re not referring to my position as his second-in-command. No, I don’t think recharging with him will do any help in persuading him. Neither do you. Otherwise, why don’t you try to seduce him yourself? You and he had been old friends before the war and before he knew me.”

It’s absurd, thought Optimus. He ignored that and listened Starscream to continue:

“You do not need to elicit how many times I tried to change his mind. The Warlord is known to be violent to his SIC, right? For countless times the violence was because I proposed action plans considering how to win the battles or seize the resources most efficiently, while he insisted on the ones with the most destruction. Of course the disputes typically ended up with him beating me until I shut up. A pacifist – I’ve never been such noble-minded. I just want to save my soldiers from Vos and other Decepticons. Most of them fought the battles only to live better, but Megatron led them into endless warfare. They have no respite even till today when the entire Cybertron has been conquered.”

Vos. Optimus knew that the pre-war citystate had a council as well as an old royal family, of which Starscream was a member. He turned from an honorable prince to the real leader of Vosians after the citystate was destroyed by the war and most of those survived join the Decepticons.

“There is no eternal victory. The Decepticon empire is doomed to be swallowed up by the blind expansion of itself. Revolts are even already simmering below the surface on the conquered planets.” The Air Commander’s optics gleamed gloomily. “The vaster this empire is expanded to, the worse its footing stones – my fellow soldiers – will be shattered when it is destroyed. Megatron is well aware of this, but he simply refuses to change, and I think you know the reason.”

Glistening light flowed through the dark optics of the Prime. The flier before him had the name of the most treacherous Decepticon, but now he almost wanted to believe him, because he indeed knew the reason Starscream referred to. After countless years of mutual fights, he and Megatron had been among those knowing each other best in the universe.

“Because he uses the continuous expansion - in the most destructive rather than efficient ways - to keep the Decepticons engaged in battling against external enemies. He uses it to suppress the Decepticons’ internal strife and keep his despotism.” He answered.”

Starscream replied in an approving tone:

“I need to explain no more.”

 

Prime was unaware that at the moment, Starscream flashbacked to a day long ago in the first half of the war.

At that day, on the surface of an organic planet, he landed on the deck of Nemesis. There were cracks and breakages on his armors, but those were only minor wounds. The worst wound was a large breach on one of his wings, which had stopped bleeding energon after it had been closed by thermal scalpel before he came back to the Decepticon lead ship. Injured to such degree made his back no less straight and his paces no less stable as he entered the ship and approached the command room.

What really discomforted him was that his thrusters and the lower halves of his pedes were almost dyed black-red. His shank armors were also covered by splashes of the same color.

That was dried blood of organic lives.

He had just commanded a battle which had eliminated the chief defense of the intelligent lives on that planet, their multi-government allied forces. The last general offensive lasted for over two Solar cycles and almost razed the base of the allied forces to the ground. Many power units of the allied forces were blown up in the air attack, and then a large number of soldiers and even requisitioned civilians operated the attacking and defensing machines manually. They became a literal lake of blood under the Decepticons’ firepower. When the Decepticons checked the battlefield afterwards, in some areas Starscream had to step through plies of corpses and the blood that could immerse lying corpses.

On the defeat of the allied forces, governments started to flee, and flags of surrender started to go up on ruins of cities across the planet. The Decepticons should take over the planet very soon, Starscream thought, and his flier fighters could have a rest then.

… But something was strange. In the general offensive just ended, the resist of the allied forces seemed… somehow too fierce.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains **description of genocide from the invaders’ views** and it is the reason this work is rated ‘mature’. The invaders’ views do not represent those of the author.
> 
> The beginning of this chapter continues Starscream’s flashback in last chapter.

In the command room there were only the Decepticon leader and communication officer. Most other high officers had gone for the general offensive just ended. Soundwave sat in front of the information panel, with his back to the Air Commander. Megatron stood in the middle of the room, the main screen behind him displaying the battlefield map for the general offensive, with densely labeled figures and remarks as well as down-scrolling text reports aside. Taking a brief look at the displayed content, Starscream saw that Soundwave had summarized the surveilled and reported data of the entire battle, including the battlefield checking data he just sent out in his way back to the Nemesis. Their lord should have well learnt about the battle and he needed not to further report.

“Good.” his leader looked at him and said.

Megatron did not grudge praising most of his subordinates, yet Starscream expected nothing more than “good” from his lord, even he had just directed their air force to smash the chief defense of the planet. He had been used to his leader’s particular harshness to him. Anyway, no matter how many times Megatron had remarked “excellent” to the work of the communication officer, it was he, Starscream, who was appointed and stayed as the SIC.

“As you have seen.” He answered, “the only decent army on this planet has turned to dust. We will soon take over this place. I don’t think any city still dare to put up resistance and refuse to surrender –”

“Surrender?” Megatron interrupted him, “it’s too late to surrender now. Prepare for the next round of battle, blow all the cities into pieces and eliminate everyone in their armed forces. Then search for the remaining organic things and march them to the mines.”

“Destroy all cities?!” Starscream almost jumped up, “that can cost half of all the proved energy deposit on this planet! And we’ll lose more soldiers fighting the desperately resisting aboriginals once their surrender is turned down. We have met pretty fierce resistance in the general offensive just know. We’ve had one fifth of the fighters maimed among all we brought to this planet!” Fighter aircraft was the type of the highest combat ability among all grounders and fliers, so such casualty should be a striking one.

Megatron stayed unmoved. “It is your fault we lose our soldiers, due to your incompetent direction.”

“I’ve taken the strategy with the lowest cost ratio in casualty!” Starscream argued, “we focused on attacking the enemies’ power system from the beginning and we indeed paralyzed their major power supply. But who could anticipate they’d rather die operating the fighting machines manually – even their civilians participated!” He took a glance at the dried organic blood covering his pedes and shank armors, and rose his optics again. “Now their allied forces are no more, but if we keep fighting like this, our battlefront will be too much stretched and we’ll keep losing soldiers. This is totally unnecessary! We can just accept their surrender and get all the energy mines, workers and wealth of the cities. We can get all we want!”

“It is necessary.” Megatron answered coldly, “it’ll be our warning to others across the galaxies that Decepticons summon them to surrender only once. They’ll either surrender at our first coming or die. This is the principle of our galactical conquest. We will stick to our principle and continue fighting on this planet until its total destruction.”

Then he sniffed, leaving no time for the Air Commander to retort:

“Starscream, I tell you another thing. After you left the Nemesis and before you started the general offensive, some governments composing the allied forces already came to surrender and said they would recall their soldiers. Their emissaries, of course, have become the thing sticking to your pedes. You’ve been executing my order since you started to destroy the allied forces. You don’t even stand a chance to disobey me!”

Shocked for an instant, Starscream then felt his spark teemed with anger. 

“So you hid their surrendering from me and let me continue to launch the general offensive – no wonder the allied force resisted so fiercely. They knew their surrender had been rejected and they’d die anyway!”

“Why should I tell you?” Megatron answered with a grim smile. “I’ve expected you coward would refuse to fight on once you heard they were surrendering. Sure enough my guess was true.”

“That’s all because of you!”

Starscream’s optics flamed with wrath. He raised his arm with a clenched fist, his ray gun pointing to his leader:

“We lost so many Decepticons in this battle, we lost fliers of Vos – of mine – all because you drove our enemies into desperate resistance! We Decepticons follow you in hope to get rid of unfair treatment and live better lives. But what have you given to us? The old Autobot government has long gone but the war goes on and on. See how many of us had fought to death without a single solar cycle of good life!”

All at once, he understood his leader’s military strategies which he had long been discontent with and doubted. He burst into a sneering laugh.

“Oh, yes, you’re not conquering galaxies for our wellbeing. Otherwise, why you keep a strategy of maximum devastation even when we have more efficient ways to grab the trophies? So often you attacked inhabited planets just to extract the resources similar to those in nearby uninhabited ones. So often you risked our soldiers to massacre the aboriginals when they’re supposed to be kept as labors, like now -”

“Shut up, Starscream.” The Warlord’s voice suddenly turned deadly dark, almost freezing the air in the room. He was giving a final warning that Starscream had reached his limit.

Yet Starscream disregarded the warning and went on:

“Now I’ve seen through. The Decepticons are made up from divergent factions and have suffered from infightings since our foundation. Your galactical conquest is exactly to make these factions engaged in alien combats and spare no moods or forces against you – as the battles with maximum destruction can best keep us busy fighting and thinking nothing else! Just to strengthen your ruling we have got so much resistances, lost so many comrades and got plunged into endless war –”

“Boom!!”

The fusion cannon fired at Starscream.

Even in a surge of fury, as a capable warrior Starscream was alerted the nanokilk his leader’s arm cannon started to charge, and he dodged swiftly when Megatron fired. The fusion cannon itself did not fully charged or well targeted either, so its fire only swept through his wing tip, blowing up a large piece of armor there, and then hit the reinforced metal wall of the command room, leaving a smoking and cracky pit on it.

But the damages on his sensitive wing circuit still gave Starscream a sharp pain, almost making him cramp. He did not try to dodge again as his leader sprinted to him: he could do so and could even fight back with his ray gun, but what good would that do? He was no match to his leader. Defending himself would only bring him more beating, or even another cannon shot.

The blast at the wall of the command room triggered an alarm all over the Nemesis. In the loud sirens, Starscream was smashed into the wall by his leader. His anger turning into a bitter disappointment, Starscream abandoned himself to the iron fists raining on him. Another hit on his cockpit broke the glass there into pieces.

“Cut it off, Soundwave!” Megatron whipped his helm round, yelling at the communication officer who had been sitting awkwardly during the quarrel between their leader and the SIC.

The siren immediately stopped, but the guard captain’s inquiring voice already came from the intercom. In nanokliks the door of the command room opened from outside. The guards flooded in, stunned to see their leader throw down the SIC and straighten up facing them.

Starscream lied on the floor with his face towards the wall. He heard someone walk to him and knew by the footsteps it was the communication officer, yet he did not bother even rolling his optics, not caring what Soundwave was going to do.

“Lord Megatron, medical attention requested.”

Said the communication officer. Megatron grunted assent, and then Starscream suddenly found himself lift off the floor.

“Stop your hypocrisy, you blindly loyal moron! Put me down!” Starscream reacted struggling, not wanting to owe Soundwave any favors. He never got along well with the communication officer. The two had widely divergent ideas and values, and Soundwave’s reticence and their leader’s appreciation on him made Starscream dislike him even more.

Ignoring Starscream’s objection, Soundwave carried him in arms and quickly stepped out of the command room towards the medbay. Starscream shoved his fist to Soundwave’s chest, trying to break free from him, but then his fist stopped in the air.

He found the communication officer’s chest chamber already ruptured, the cracks extended to above the chamber. Looking further upwards, he saw the deep marks of squeezing on Soundwave’s neck, so deep that even the wire sheathes there were broken. Starscream did not spot these wounds earlier as throughout his staying in the command room just now, one of the two was facing away from the other.

Wounded like this on their own spaceship … Starscream immediately knew what happened.

“You … did you insist to notify me our enemies were surrendering before I launched the offensive?”

“Affirmative.” Soundwave answered as he walked on, “then I was chocked to offline by our lord. When I came online again, the general offensive has begun.”

Starscream knew the communication officer cherished their fellow Decepticon soldiers far more than him. That he tried his best to prevent the general offensive and unnecessary causalities even if he would then face Megatron’s fury was totally imaginable. It was rare that their leader wound gave Soundwave merely a punch, rarer than the occasions he beat Starscream himself to the ground, let alone to chock Soundwave offline.

Starscream sighed and did not struggle any longer. He shut his optics, his consciousness quickly clouded by the pain and loss of energon from his wounds.

 

*** ***

 

Injuried in the battle as well as by his leader, Starscream had to stay in the medbay for a couple of solar cycles. As he came back online from surgical anesthetic, he found himself alone in a compartment dimly lit by only a berthside lamp. His internal clock showed midnight.

After a few kilks, he heard approaching footsteps from the outside. Recognizing the sounds, he got alarmed and struggled to sit up. The compartment door opened and entered the Decepticon leader, standing on the berthside, watching him.   

Starscream drooped his helm, the voice of his leader drifting into his receiver.   

“Why it was you who accused me.”

Starscream did not expect hearing this. His leader accentuated “you”, meaning the accusation was not wrong but Starscream was an inappropriate mech to make it. In other words, Megatron actually admitted the accusation that he used outwards galactic conquest to outweigh the internal conflicts among the Decepticons and prevent insurgencies, that he was the one who made the war endless. Speechlessly, Starscream kept listening to his leader:

“Anyone else is more qualified than you to accuse me. What are you to me apart from my SIC?”

Starscream knew what aspect his leader referred to, but still he was unsure about the answer. He hesitated for a few nanokilks, then replied:

“… Lover?”

“Lucky you did not say berthmate, or I’ll give you another punch.” Megatron sat on the berthside, lifting Starscream’s chin to look at him:

“I won’t get my subordinate into berth simply because he looks hot. I won’t if he’s not skilled, powerful and ruthless, if he’s not a living embodiment of the Decepticon ideal.”

The Decepticon leader’s crimson optics burnt brilliantly under the dim light, making Starscream almost want to run. Yet he was magnetized by the burning optics and even could not look away.

“Did you just talk about me?” Being used to Megatron’s harshness on him, he felt it nearly unbelievable to be spoken so highly of by his leader.

“Who else could I have talked about?” Megatron seemed to be able to read his mind, “I’ve been extraordinarily rigorous with you, because my expectations of you is equal to that of myself. Because I see us as one. So even the Decepticon empire will be founded on the ashes of anyone, even I will use all of them, you will definitely be an exception. You’ll always stand at my side, overlooking the worlds we bring to their knees.”

Starscream widened his optics, watching the Warlord getting closer and closer, until their chest armor almost touched.

“So, never say again what you’ve said today.” His leader said in a very deep voice.

“…I’m sorry, Lord Megatron.”

Starscream had been resolute in the saying “Decepticons do not apologize”. Even when he made mistakes and admitted his liabilities on them, he rarely apologized. Now his apology was based beyond the leader-subordinate relationship between the two, for he should not have ignored the affection on him set by his leader.

The radiance in Megatron’s optics softened. He mumbled, seemingly content with that his young lover had got pacified. He lifted the chin of his lieutenant again, gently.

With understanding, Starscream slightly parted his lips. Megatron pressed an overwhelmingly warm kiss on his lips and cuddled him tightly with equally warm arms.

Starscream embraced his leader back around the waist. His spark, however, was chilling.

_My liege, your means can only cover our internal conflicts but never settled them. The galactic expansion cannot last forever, and the Decepticons will fall apart once you can no longer keep the pace of your conquest. The conquered planets, for sure, will also take that chance to rebel. The larger you expand your empire to, the greater destructive force you will accumulate for the final eruption. What will be left to you then? While you think you can stand upon the ashes, the war will eventually doom all that involved, including you._

 

*** ***

 

Megatron’s order was ultimately carried out on that planet. Later, Starscream realized, time and time again, that Megatron had been well aware of the unsustainability and the anticipatable backfire of his galactic expansion strategy all through, yet he had gone too far to go back. Hopeless to expect any change of his leader, Starscream joined the internal strife himself, and over the time, he became the most notorious renegade and the synonym for treachery.

Almost everyone thought, and even he told himself, that his treachery was purely motivated by his ambition. But occasionally, when he had to face himself – such as now as he sought cooperation with the Autobots – he had to acknowledge his humble wish concealed in his monstrous ambition:

_If the war can get stopped before the Decepticon empire collapses from its inside … all this could still be reversible._

Fortunately, there were still, though rather few, mechs that would believe he had that wish.  

“Megatron will not stop his expansion in the near future.” He said to Optimus in the Burial Ground, “He has got lost too long to extricate himself. And now he has brought down you Autobots and proven his strategy has been successful so far, how can you expect him to change? Only after your thwart him again and win over those in the planets he conquered can there be a remote possibility for him to introspect… to change.”

“So you’ll help us stand up again and try to stop him, even affect him.” The Autobot leader kept his in-mind voice and EM field composed all along, despite his hanging posture. “Understandable, even that you stand up for your fellow Decepticon warriors is still somewhat surprising.”

Starscream gave an unvoiced laughter. “Not really. After all, I am a Decepticon warrior myself.”

Optimus muted for a while before he finally answered.

“Let me say a few words to Rodimus. Pass my words to him through your memory file, and he will cooperate with you then.”

 

*** ***

 

It took hundreds of solar cycles after the Decepticons took over the entire Cybertron to refurbish the former Autobot headquarter in Iacon. The refurbishing was thorough, eliminating all traces that the architecture was once bombed. On the top floor of the headquarter mansion, the Warlord and his Air Commander looked down at the city through the windows.

“Our empire.” Megatron remarked, and then he asked, “any idea about the next place to conquer?”

“As you wish,” Starscream answered. “Anywhere. We fliers will be always at your service.”

Megatron laughed loudly. He pulled his lieutenant into his arms, drowning him in passionate kisses once more.

Starscream responded to his liege, thinking entirely otherwise, but his response was no less sincere.

_While you seek glory in destruction, I will realize your cause in my own way._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron's remarks that Starscream was "skilled, powerful and ruthless" and "a living embodiment of the Decepticon ideal", and that Starscream would stand at his side, overlooking the conquered worlds come from All Hail Megatron #6.


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s fundamentally different from your past rebellions.” Optimus remarked when he met Starscream for the second time in the Burial Ground, “You have tried multiple times to take Megatron’s place. But you have never defected the Decepticon cause, until this time you cooperate with us. Decepticons believe in ‘the strongest mech takes all’, so Megatron may tolerate someone challenging his supremacy, but aiding the Decepticons’ mortal enemy... He will deactivate you.”

“Should my enemy – even my temporary alliance as well – care about my life?” Starscream replied with a sarcastic smile. “No, Prime, you expect too much mercy from him. Megatron will make me beg for death.”

 

*** ***

 

“Anyway it’ll be somewhat less comfortable than an ordinary return to the Allspark.”

That was Starscream’s answer to the same concern as Optimus made by Skyfire the solar cycle before rescuing Optimus and the Luna 2 jailbreak. At that time, Starscream met Rodimus and Skyfire again for a final discussion on details of the plans for the two actions. After the discussion, Starscream requested a moment alone with Skyfire. Knowing the relation between Starscream and Skyfire, Rodimus stepped out of the control compartment without saying a word.

Starscream and Skyfire had little time to talk with each other even after the former came to the Autobots for cooperation. The comm. channel between the two they used near the Autobot base was at a pre-war civil frequency, incapable for accurate inter-solar-system transmission, and moreover was not anti-interception, so it could be easily detected by the Decepticon intelligence agency. So basically they could not use the comm. most time when Starscream was near Cybertron.

Once they were alone, Skyfire expressed his fear for what if Starscream was found cooperating with the Autobots by the Decepticons. Skyfire hated asking this question or even thinking about it, but the two sides would suspend their contact after the Autobots’ actions the next solar cycle. He did not know when he would meet Starscream again, or if he would ever. He could no long delude himself at such a moment.

And then Starscream gave that answer. He curled his lip to the increasingly worried looking Autobot scientist:

“Take it easy. I’ve been prepared. At least I can reject a too agonizing or humiliating execution.”

He tapped his helm with a finger: “Explosive chip. A mercy killing in one nanoklik.”

“Star!”

The Shuttle uttered a low and painful cry and grabbed the Seeker’s slender shoulder armors. Starscream had a fame of preferring trickeries over direct confront in the battles and being good at making other Decepticons his scapegoats, for which he had been called coward for many times by his enemy and even his own kind. Fair or not aside, the comment at least highlighted his cunning to avoid risks and stay safe. But this time he even set an explosive chip in his head to end his life and avoid further torment if necessary. It is clear that he was prepared to bear any consequence.

“I am controlled by no one.”

The Air Commander answered firmly. He looked down, dabbing Skyfire’s servos wrapped around his shoulder, “I’ve got something I must tell you.”

He drew out a wide-angle projecting datapad from his subspace and turned it on. From the datapad a pattern was projected on his entire wings. It was the ribbon pattern to be painted onto his wings, made up with alternate insignias of Vos and Tarn.   

Skyfire’s servos squeezed harder abruptly, and then he loosened his grip, letting his servos drop down as if he had lost all his strength. He looked at Starscream in bitterness:  

“Congrats, Star…after all you love him, and he also loves –”

“Dare you bless the damn thing! You hate it!” Starscream snapped off the projection and clapped the datapad on the Autobot insignia on Skyfire’s midsection. Then he pressed his own chest cockpit against it. Skyfire felt the Seeker’s turbulent EM field flood into the field of himself, making him hold close Starscream spontaneously. The turbulence did not started to relent until a dozen of nanokliks later.

Starscream gave a deep sigh.

“I’ll explain if it can make you feel better. I must admit there is love between Megatron and me, but the basic reason he and I get here is he needs the flier warriors from Vos. When Vos was destroyed in the war, we had no choice but to join the Decepticons. Now Cybertron is united, Vosians no longer have nowhere to go. Also, they are tired of battles and killing like most other soldiers. But Megatron still needs them. He needs these elite airmechs to continue expanding his galactical empire. To maintain their loyalty he shall keep a firm grasp on me: I started as only their figurehead, but now I’m their real source of cohesion. With this arrangement he can justifiably grant certain privileges to Vosian warriors … and make Vos the first city on Cybertron to be completely rebuilt. These are exactly what I want: to further the interests of my mechs, and to rebuild Vos – I have dreamed of it for as long as the war lasted.”    

He pushed himself slightly off his tall and large lover, and looked up at him. “So the deal is made. Mechs like him and me are nourished by power, and love is merely an ornament for us. You know it.”

Skyfire could say nothing. The stare from his ice blue optics were as sour and painful as the acid Cybertronian rain. He knew his love was the fastest Cybertronian flier and could make the most dazzling maneuvers in the sky, but he still felt the red Seeker had been deprived of all liberty. He could almost see in his mind his lover pinned down in an embellished cage, his spotless white, now quivering wings penetrated and wrapped by heavy chains.

Finally it was Starscream who spoke again:

“Kiss my goodbye.”

Skyfire bowed, took Starscream’s face in his servos, and kissed him on his lips. The Shuttle offlined his optics. He was afraid if he looked the crimson flares in the Seeker’s optics once more, he would be unable to keep cleaning fluids from running down his cheeks.

He knew this was the last time he kissed his Star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend drew me a brilliant art for Sk&Ss in this fic. [Check it out!](https://lantana0v0.tumblr.com/post/182700839434/its-a-gift-for-my-friend-scissorsparchment)


	6. Chapter 6

The Burial Ground, four joors (240 kliks) before the scheduled Autobots’ rescue of the Prime.

By the time Optimus finished reading the rescue plan and Starscream gave some further remarks on it, the supply drone had gone back to the floor and started to dispatch energon to other cells. While the drone was still at this floor, Optimus and Starscream, the latter hiding in the supply drone, could continue their conversation for a last couple of kliks.

Now they had finished communicating about the actions tonight, Optimus looked again to the new ribbon paints across Starscream’s wings which almost shocked him from the beginning of this meeting.

The Vos and Tarn insignias forming the paints shimmered soft silver, intertwining each other, like pairs of snuggling lovers.

The Autobot leader never pry others’ personal affairs, but the paints were just too much for him to ignore. A Cybertronian normally wore such paints only once throughout the lifetime. 

That were the classical paints for sparkmates’ bonding ceremony.

The paints would be made up by the insignias of the citystates from which the to-be-sparkmates hailed. They would be painted onto the couple’s armors three solar cycles before the bonding ceremony and kept until the ceremony ended. Even such a classical tradition had become much less common today, it was still followed by most of those in power, especially when their marriages were linked to politics as usual. That was exactly the case of the Decepticon SIC. Starscream came from Vos, and the Tarn insignias should be for – the most renown gladiator in Tarn before the war, the perennial champion in the planetary gladiator game of Cybertron…

“Megatron…”

“The ceremony is scheduled three solar cycles later. I got the paints only joors ago.” Starsrceam gave a smile, “Surely it will be postponed after your rescue this evening. Also, Megatron will command me to intercept your rescue team, so these paints must be ruined by then and repainted later. Tell your men to be cautious. I cannot throw the game too much, otherwise I’ll be suspected. I will not attack your vital parts, but for other Autobots, there’s no guarantee.”

Then he pulled out from his subspace a silver necklace – the common jewelry for bonding engagement between Cybertronians – and raised it to his chest, scrutinizing it.

The necklace was in an exquisite design but far from florid, well matching the streamlined slenderness of the red Seeker. Its pendant was in a circular metal frame, with a transparent gem in the middle, inside which floated smoky amethyst mineral patterns. The gem should be a combination of two pieces, as a small triangular patch was embedded in the center of the gem, its color being bleak, metallic gray.

It took Optimus only one nanokilk to figure out why such a nondescript piece of metal was embedded in the pendant of a most precious engagement necklace.

“This is … a piece of a spark chamber.” He murmured.

“Yes.” The Air Commander gently stroke the pendant with his blue fingertips, “from Megatron’s spark chamber. We all have a small piece of our spark chambers fitted into the Decepticon insignia on our armors. But who else can get Megatron open his chest and have a piece of his spark chamber?”

He placed the pendant against his chest cockpit at the height of his own spark. His helm tilting slightly and the smile still on his faceplate, he looked almost like an ordinary soon-to-bond mech ready to accept the blessings of all.

Optimus knew he was not.

Knowing Starscream was to bond with another mech, Skyfire’s first thought was whether his lover was truly loved by the “another mech” and could attain happiness. Optimus nevertheless was clear no matter how much affections existed between the Warlord and his SIC, their marriage was primarily a trade, through which Megatron wanted to strengthen the loyalty of the flier warriors whereas Starscream’s sought for interests of his men. Even so, Megatron still had the sincerity to open his chest, take out a piece of his spark chamber and embed it into the engagement necklace. The Autobot leader did feel a bit surprised of this.

The Decepticons put a piece of their spark chambers into the Decepticon insignias on them to pledge their allegiance. Similarly, embedding a piece of spark chamber into an engagement jewelry is also a pledge of loyalty to the significant other.

_Burning or extinct, our sparks will stay together._

Starscream accepted the pledge from Megatron. But in the meanwhile, he stood together with their sworn enemy to plan for fighting against his to-be-sparkmate. And he had been orchestrating this for a long time.

This should sound hideous. But isn’t it righteous to stop the Warlord and prevent the flame of war from spreading to more galaxies? Even it is hard to imagine using ‘justice’ in reference to Starscream.

Optimus was clear that Starscream’s explanation on his motive to stop Megatron was a cropping of reality he made to fit the Autobot’s values and gain their cooperation; he must have other unspoken motives and ambitions. But the part of motives Starscream had said out was true.

“I guess you’ve got a better perception of my viciousness, ‘one that can plot against his sparkmate right before the bonding ceremony.” Starscream said, “but you should agree Megatron is doom to destroy himself if he does not change. Then am I not doing all these also for his good?”

“You have planned to head for the remotest planets conquered by the Decepticons after your rescue and the Luna 2 jailbreak.” He continued, “you planned to liberate the enslaved aboriginals on those planets, for one thing to avoid confronting Decepticon main troops before the Autobot forces recover sufficiently, for another to remedy the destruction caused by Cybertronian invasions. By the Autobot cause, if you win the war, you’ll continue to defense those planets and the living space of their residents. This is equivalent to transforming Megatron’s galactic empire to a peaceful and sustainable one – you can argue that you’ll not conquer those planets, that you’ll make peace with the aboriginals and let them manage their own homes. But you will still be extending the Cybertronians’ sphere of influence. There is no essential difference on this point.”

“Once the extended sphere of influence becomes permanent, the invasion turns to a great exploration. Megatron will be called the lord of exploration by our later generations, rather than a pathetic tyrant overthrown by internal strife and the planets conquered by himself. And you will be our successor benefiting from our victory. It’s not at all absurd. The ancient Primes did the same thing. See what they are referred to as today.”

Optimus could not refute. In the distant past, the earliest Cybertronian tribal leaders, later called the original Primes, explored the galaxy and colonized multiple planets. They did not carry out genocide as the Decepticons, but they nevertheless also took control of the colony worlds and drove the aboriginals to impoverished remote areas. What else can this be called other than invasion? Yet today the ancient Primes were regarded as the founders of Cybertron’s glory and worshipped as gods. Anyone pointing out their evilness of invading the colony worlds could be accused for blasphemy.

“So only by what I am doing can Megatron’s vision be realized and his greatness become eternal.” Starscream summarized. Arguing overthrowing someone was for his own sake sounded a cosmic sophistry, but Starscream’s argument was well-founded. What touched the Autobot leader even more was the tone of the Decepticon Air Commander.

Starscream’s tone was free of his iconic sarcasm, but rather teemed with genuine and desperate love.

“…How should we repay your help this time?” Optimus finally asked, “We do not want to owe you the favor, to wait until you ask us to do what we cannot in return.”

“Huh. I have little to request if you will accept only what does not conflict the Autobots’ principles.” Answered Starscream. “If Megatron really introspects and changes in future battles with you, or if my future rebellion against him really succeeds for once – which is likely to need your collaboration – then I do not need more from you either. But if the war cannot end until the Decepticons are roundly defeated, then… be kind to other Decepticons.”

His expression turned solemn. “Help them integrate into society and live stable lives. Try to control rather than execute even the stubborn rebels. This is what I request for repaying my help. I have nothing to do with philanthropism, but now I am striving for the good of all the Decepticons, let me have a complete success.”

“This is reasonable,” said Optimus, “especially thinking that I cannot promise to achieve it even I try hard to. There is too much hatred between the Autobots and the Decepticons. But I will try my best.”

Starscream nodded once. “You’ll be lying if you make the promise.”

“But by saying ‘other Decepticons’ you seemed to refer to others than Megatron and you… you -”

“Sure.” Starscream chuckled, “if Megatron does not change himself, do you Autobots have any means other than killing him to terminate his threats to you and to the universe? You don’t. Then why would I bother asking anything? As for me, even I have helped you, I have also done all that I am supposed to do as his first lieutenant and the Decepticon second-in-command. If Megatron is the worst criminal you have ever seen, then I am not really better.”

He chuckled again, tenderly, and remarked in his raucous voice,

“I will, of course, go to the Pit with my sparkmate by then.”

He turned to his side, and then his hologram disappeared in the air.

 

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The characters and ideologies in this work are mainly with reference to IDW G1 universe, though the plots widely diverge from it. 
> 
> “Prince” in the title has dual meaning: prince of Vos and prince consort of Megatron. The nobility setting is to make the tradition of city insignias as wedding paints more real. Starscream gets his position in the Decepticon ranks due to his own ability, which is irrelevant to the nobility part.
> 
> For Megatron I hope to highlight his plight and his true love to Starscream. If he still looks no more than a heartless tyrant that will only hurt Star, it is due to my limited writing ability rather than my intention to make him like this.
> 
> Again thanks everyone for reading.


	7. Artwork: Sequel - the bonding ceremony

Sorry to make a new chapter for the artwork, but this picture looks too large to be in last chapter note.

I imagine the rescue of Optimus succeeded. The Warlord was enraged, but he still kept his plan and bonded with his SIC a dozen of solar cycles later. 

Starscream knew he was on a road of no return betraying Megatron, helping the Autobots and trying to end the war. He felt more painful seeing Megatron know nothing and show rare peaceful happiness.


End file.
